This blog is dedicated to sharing the concept that our hands are essential to learning- that we engage the world and its wonders, sensing and creating primarily through the agency of our hands. We abandon our children to education in boredom and intellectual escapism by failing to engage their hands in learning and making.

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

creative curiosity

Today I had the first, second and third grade students in the CSS woodshop finishing their abacuses and preparing for their harvest party. This year, one of the events they will manage will be a woodworking booth where they can instruct other students in making tops. So we have lots of parts to prepare. And I have lots of work to do as well.

I will miss the harvest party this year, as I will be in Syracuse, New York to teach box making with the Sawdust and Woodchips Woodworking Club. I am getting things ready to leave on Friday.

So much is learned in our culture with so little consequence. We go online and can explore for hours, having little or no effect on what we actually do. We can be chained to our devices, learn lots that is useless to us and be left unchanged. Idle curiosity seems to be the name of the age. But with real tools and real materials through which we might respond to what we have learned, we have unprecedented opportunity to be creative. Take away the real tools, however, and we are just idly entertained, regardless the level of our curiosity.

My 7th, 8th and 9th grade students resumed cutting dovetails yesterday after a short break. The use of tools also requires attention to their own bodies, and real wood does not allow you to just start over again as one would in the manipulation of digital devices. The iPad doesn't care if you are sitting at a desk or standing on your head, and so your own physical nature is not a consideration in your lessons. But to saw along a straight line involves senses that our children do not commonly exercise. Without the development of these senses, our children are limited in power, just as the blind may not see, or as the deaf may not hear.

About Me

I have been a self-employed woodworker in Eureka Springs, Arkansas since 1976. I live with my wife Jean on a wooded hillside overlooking our beautiful historic community.
In addition to work in my wood shop, I teach children at the Clear Spring School in a program called "The Wisdom of the Hands." My 10th and 11th books, Tiny Boxes by Taunton Press and Making Classic Toys that Teach were published in November 2016. My most recent book is The Box Maker's Guitar Book published in 2017. I also write for Fine Woodworking, Woodcraft and other woodworking magazines.
My resume can be downloaded at
www.dougstowe.com/resume.doc